The Weak-Eyed Bat

Tom’s bedroom adjoined Mary’s. Prye went in quietly and closed the door behind him. There was no evidence that Tom had done any packing. The room was neat, the clothes hung up carefully in the closet. Prye went over to the dresser and pulled out a drawer. It shrieked.

“Who’s there?” Mary called out.

Prye stood still.

“Who’s there?” she called, and this time there was panic in her voice.

Prye said, “Damn!” and went out into the hall.

“It’s Dr. Prye, Mrs. Little. I was just—”

“What are you doing in Tom’s room?”

“Inspector White sent me over to see if any of your husband’s clothes were missing.”

“Sent you over!” Mary said bitterly. “It’s not important enough for him to come himself.”

“He’s busy organizing a search of the woods,” Prye was able to say truthfully. “Do you mind if I go on with my job?”

There was no reply. He went back into Tom’s room. Tom was a careful man. His drawers were all in order, and even his correspondence had been arranged in three piles in his writing desk: letters from friends, bills, and business matters. None of the envelopes of the personal letters bore feminine handwriting.

Prye walked slowly toward the door, vaguely dissatisfied. He turned his head and let his eyes wander once more around the room, over the dresser, the cedar chest, the desk, the bed with its covers turned down. There was nothing out of place. Then he looked down and saw on the rug a tiny shaft of green light which should not have been there.

It lay on the ledge of the window, a large square emerald ring flanked with diamonds that caught the sun. It seemed as if someone had put it down casually and forgotten about it. Prye covered it with his handkerchief and placed it in his coat pocket.

In five minutes he was back in his own cottage. With the aid of two mirrors he unwound the bandages from his head and replaced them with a pad of absorbent cotton and several strips of adhesive. Then he jammed a hat over his head and surveyed himself. The effect was not pretty because his ears bent a little; but at least the bandages were invisible.

“If I’m lucky,” he said aloud, “it will be a he, or else a she who won’t expect me to take my hat off.”

He wasn’t lucky. The middle-aged spinster in charge of the switchboard at the telephone exchange in Clayton palpably expected him to remove his hat and eyed him none too cordially as he tugged at the brim. It came off with a rush accompanied by a piece of adhesive and a quantity of Prye’s hair.

Prye pointed to the hair. “A toupee,” he said. “Dam thing won’t stay on.”

“Accounts payable at the desk,” she told Prye severely. Then she doffed her earphones, patted her hair, and appeared behind the desk.

“Jekyll and Hyde,” Prye murmured.

“Name, please,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed glassily on the switchboard.

“Who? Me?” Prye said.

“Of course you,” she said to the switchboard.

“Prye. Dr. Prye. But my bill isn’t due yet. As a matter of fact, I just dropped in to get an idea of how a switchboard works. Very interesting, isn’t it?”

“Not if you have to do it,” she replied coldly.

“No. I can see that.”

A red light glowed on the board and in an instant she had replaced her earphones and was asking in a lilting voice which bore no resemblance to her own: “Number, please?”

She came back behind the desk.

“It’s quite simple, you see,” she informed him.

“I’m afraid I’d feel an awful temptation to listen in on calls,” Prye confessed. “Or else I’d get tangled up in the wires and strangle myself.”

Prye led the laughing but she joined in. When she had finished she regarded him with condescending benevolence. “I daresay it’s possible.”

“You don’t mean to tell me you manage the exchange all by yourself?” Prye said.

“From seven to seven. Another girl comes on at night.”

“Terrible business, this murder out at the Point,” Prye said casually.

She froze again, her mouth hard and tight as if she had swallowed some liquid air.

“It’s a pity that telephone operators aren’t permitted to listen in on calls,” Prye went on. “They could probably help the police a great deal. Now take this business out at the Point. Mr. Little received a phone call last night around six o’clock. If we could verify what was said over the line perhaps we could find Mr. Little.”

“He’s gone?” she exclaimed. “Why, I never dreamed—”

Prye leaned over the desk. “If you should remember that call, Miss—?”

She was quite pale. “Jones. Miss Jones. I can tell you where the call came from but that’s all. It was Miss Bonner’s house.”

“Was it a woman or a man?”

“A woman with a funny name.”

“Miss Alfonse?”

“That’s it,” she said uneasily. “Really, I can’t tell—”

“She asked for Mr. Little and told him who was speaking. He seemed puzzled, didn’t know what she was talking about.”

“How did you know?”

“Oh, I know what was said. I’m just checking up on it, you see.”